title: New boron nitride whiskers: showing strong ultraviolet and visible light luminescence.
abstract: Boron nitride whiskers with a special structure have been synthesized by a thermal reaction process. The as-prepared BN whiskers have a length of tens of micrometers and a mean diameter of 500 nm. High-resolution TEM analysis shows that the as-prepared BN whiskers can be described as a nanofiber-interweaved network. Infrared and electron energy loss spectra reveal that the BN whiskers are composed of both sigma-sp2 and sigma-sp3 chemical bonds. The UV-vis absorption spectrum displays the energy band gap of the BN whiskers and multiple fine absorption peaks of the phonon-electron coupling. Both photoluminescence (PL) and cathodoluminescence (CL) measurements show the specially structured BN emits strong UV and visible luminescences, which is a promising material for deep-blue and UV applications.
authors.affiliation: Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Ying-Chun
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Yoshio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bando
authors.forename: Dong-Feng
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sekiguchi
authors.forename: Dmitri
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Golberg
authors.forename: Fang-Fang
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Quan-Lin
authors.initials: QL
authors.lastname: Liu